Free A Possibility of Violence by D. A. Mishani Page A

loads and long hours of driving. Either way, he would be forced to work more, not just during the day but in the evening as well, at home. This didn’t scare him. Anyway, in recent months Jenny hadn’t worked and they had been living on only the earnings from the business.
    His mother said, “Adina will come and help you with the children,” and he said, “No need. I want to be with them more.”
    â€œBut did you see how well she gets along with them?”
    He saw. His mother sat Adina next to Shalom and she looked after him throughout the evening, took the bones out of the fish for him, rinsed his hands when he got messy from oil, everything that Jenny didn’t do. When he got hit by one of the cousins and cried, out of all the people there he ran to her. She was forty-five years old, divorced, with no children, and started cleaning at his mother’s place two years earlier. She lived nearby and they became friends. She was grateful that his mother invited her to their Rosh Hashanah dinner. “It’s a pity God didn’t bless her with children. She would be a good mother,” his mother said, and he got up from his place and set the cup of tea in the sink.
    When he lay down in bed he heard her turning the faucet on and off in the kitchen and afterward flushing the toilet in the bathroom. He thought that perhaps it was a mistake to come to her with the children for the holiday, even though he didn’t know what he would do with them for four days by himself. The two of them were happy to sleep at her place, especially Shalom, the younger one. He asked what would happen if Mom came back and didn’t find them in the apartment and Chaim calmed him down. He said she wouldn’t come back over the holiday. But again he hadn’t talked with them enough, as he had promised himself he would. He let his mother talk to them instead, as if something in her weakened him, although she herself was weak and was only trying to help. She was already eighty years old. His father was many years older than his mother and died when he was fifty-six.
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    THE NEXT DAY, CHAIM WENT TO the synagogue that his father had attended.
    He had slept well and was refreshed and more certain of his strength. His body felt younger and energetic. He thought that it would be difficult to find a place to sit in the synagogue and prepared himself to stand during the service, but the small room wasn’t full. Most of the worshippers were old, perhaps his mother’s age. A few of them recognized him and greeted him with a nod or wished him a happy new year. He sat next to Shlomo Achoan’s father and tried to pray with great conviction, but he lost his place in the prayer book. And missed his sons, who were still sleeping when he left. He wanted to take them on a hike through the orchard where he played with his father as a child. When he returned, before noon, they were on the carpet, quietly watching television. The shutters were closed against the sun and the house was almost completely dark. Ezer sat cross-legged and his younger brother was lying next to him. His mother sat on the sofa behind them, holding a saucer with shelled hazelnuts and almonds. Perhaps because of what he saw in Ezer’s gaze Chaim suddenly said, “Do you want to call Mom?” And Shalom jumped from his place and hugged his leg. Ezer looked at him with his distant eyes and he saw joy in them. Is this in fact how the plan began to unfold? He went into his mother’s bedroom, dialed the number, and waited. He sat on her bed while the two of them stood next to him, their eyes fixed on the phone. Afterward he heard his own recorded voice announce, “You’ve reached Chaim and Jenny Sara. We can’t answer at the moment. You can leave a message when you hear the beep.”
    He put the receiver down and said, “She didn’t answer,” and Shalom said, “Why didn’t she